Confused and covered in dust but still alive, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl became a symbol of hope for Algeria yesterday after she was pulled from the rubble of a building flattened in an earthquake which devastated the country's densely-populated north.

As the death toll rose to almost 1,500, Yousra Hamenniche was rescued from the mangled concrete of a building in Boumerdes, 30 miles east of Algiers.

"The life of this miraculous baby is no longer in danger," state radio said as the country tried to find relief in the single act of salvation.

A 12-year-old girl called Hassiba was also found alive in the town but elsewhere the picture became increasingly grim as rescuers admitted that they were running out of time in their attempts to find survivors under the shattered remains of dozens of buildings.

Specialist search teams from Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland spent most of their time pulling bodies from under concrete slabs and piles of rubble.

Mohammed Kindil, Algeria's deputy interior minister, said the death toll from the country's worst tremor in more than 20 years, which struck on Wednesday night, had risen to 1,467. At least 7,207 people were injured. A health ministry source said the final death toll might pass 2,200.

Anger mounted among the residents of Boumerdeswho, digging into the debris with sledgehammers and bare hands, complained that help had come too late. Some accused builders of erecting unsafe structures in a known earthquake zone.

Brahim Ramdani, a well-known local football coach said: "I have no family left. My wife, my daughter, my grand daughter, my son and my grandson are dead," as he stood beside the flattened three-storey building which had been his home.

"I know you can't do anything about natural disasters, but I am angry because nobody came to help us."

In the village of Corso, Ismail Lizir, 42, said: "It's been nearly three days, and there has been no sign of local authorities. What we need is heavy machinery."

The worst of the devastation was in the city of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a 10-storey block of 78 flats collapsed. About 250 bodies were pulled out with another 600 feared buried inside.

Saa Sayah, a captain in Algeria's civil protection unit, said rescuers had stopped listening for voices but were being guided by the scent of decaying bodies.

"There is not much hope here," he said in front of a four-storey building that had collapsed. "We have already pulled up four bodies, but we can't get further inside."

At another building, two women wearing black head scarves wailed and beat their hands on their chests as a Swiss rescue team pulled the body of a 12-year-old girl from the wreckage. Relatives held her dust-coated body tightly before she was covered in a blanket and put in the back of a yellow van.

Thirty-five British volunteers travelled to Algeria yesterday to help. The men and women from the International Rescue Corps and Rapid UK, were mostly firefighters, paramedics and engineers.

Dave Lambard, 43, a firefighter from Diss, Norfolk said: "Our purpose in Algeria will be to search for, and hopefully find survivors and assist in the rescue. This is what we are trained to do and we will hopefully do some good out there."

Jianni Savio who was coordinating a team of rescue workers from Verona, Italy said: "We are going through each building bit by bit with sniffer dogs. There are still chances to find people alive, but the destruction here is very bad."

In Boumerdes, whole districts were deserted. Shops and cafes were abandoned and the only sound was that of dogs barking.

Families sat in cars or on mattresses and sofas in dusty streets. In one part of the town, food and water were being handed out at the site of a destroyed pizzeria.

Some of the thousands on the streets had blankets and tents provided by the authorities, but others had nothing. Electricity, gas and water supplies and phone lines were severed in some of the worst-hit areas.